(Thursday, January 03, 2019 4:40:00 PM)
LOS ANGELES – David Fizdale’s scattered rotations and game plans will soon be easier to understand.
At least that’s the plan.
Taking longer than he expected (Fizdale wanted a set rotation after 25 games), the coach said he has used the first half of the season to get a feel for his roster. As a…
(Thursday, January 03, 2019 4:05:00 PM)
LOS ANGELES – LeBron James probably won’t play Friday against the Knicks, which would be a welcomed development for a team that has lost 13 of 14 games during a downright miserable stretch.
As David Fizdale said about the Lakers superstar hobbled by a groin injury, “I don’t have to see him. I’ve…
(Thursday, January 03, 2019 4:40:00 PM)
LOS ANGELES – David Fizdale’s scattered rotations and game plans will soon be easier to understand.
At least that’s the plan.
Taking longer than he expected (Fizdale wanted a set rotation after 25 games), the coach said he has used the first half of the season to get a feel for his roster. As a…
(Thursday, January 03, 2019 4:05:00 PM)
LOS ANGELES – LeBron James probably won’t play Friday against the Knicks, which would be a welcomed development for a team that has lost 13 of 14 games during a downright miserable stretch.
As David Fizdale said about the Lakers superstar hobbled by a groin injury, “I don’t have to see him. I’ve…
(Friday, January 04, 2019 12:02:57 AM)
The Sixers don’t have long-term concerns about signing Jimmy Butler to a possible five-year contract, Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes. Butler is set to turn 30 in September, currently playing in his eighth NBA season. “No concern, because of the way he takes care of his body,” Sixers GM Elton Brand said, according […]
(Friday, January 04, 2019 12:02:57 AM)
The Sixers don’t have long-term concerns about signing Jimmy Butler to a possible five-year contract, Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes. Butler is set to turn 30 in September, currently playing in his eighth NBA season. “No concern, because of the way he takes care of his body,” Sixers GM Elton Brand said, according […]
(Thursday, January 03, 2019 6:40:19 PM)
Knicks 2019 draft target C Bol Bol he has a left foot injury that will end his freshman year at Oregon, per The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
(Thursday, January 03, 2019 3:20:54 PM)
After a breakout month of December, Knicks F Kevin Knox was named the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month.
(Thursday, January 03, 2019 11:58:41 AM)
Kristaps Porzingis, a restricted free agent, is not necessarily a lock to re-sign with the Knicks.
(Thursday, January 03, 2019 10:49:18 AM)
NEW YORK, January 3, 2019 – New York Knicks forward Kevin Knox has been named KIA NBA Eastern Conference Rookie of the M
[NYTimes] On College Basketball: A Mighty Tree Grows in Georgetown. It Belongs to Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning. (Thursday, January 03, 2019 8:30:46 PM)
They were stars at Georgetown and in the N.B.A., where they were also fierce rivals. Now these classic big men and close friends are linked by Georgetown again.
(Thursday, January 03, 2019 8:01:01 PM)
LOS ANGELES — There have been few highlights on the Knicks current two-week, six-game road trip, but the most precious one came with French subtitles. Lost in the Jazz’s dominant win Saturday was Knicks point guard Frank Ntilikina driving to the basket in the first half and dunking on a pursuing Rudy Gobert, who also…
(Thursday, January 03, 2019 4:27:20 PM)
LOS ANGELES — Knicks rookie center Mitchell Robinson believes it’s a blessing in disguise he’s not donning purple and gold. The Lakers passed on Robinson with the 25th pick in the 2018 draft after giving him heavy consideration, instead choosing Michigan center Moritz Wagner. Robinson slipped to the second round, where the Knicks, who face…
(Thursday, January 03, 2019 2:30:50 PM)
LOS ANGELES — David Fizdale won’t get the chance to see Kevin Knox face LeBron James for the first time Friday at Staples Center. But the Knicks coach hopes not to leave the arena without the 19-year-old Knox and the injured Lakers star sharing a conversation. Fizdale and James are close from their days in…
86 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2019.01.04)”
So, James Harden heard the praise for other players and decided he really really wants to be MVP again… what an insane stretch he’s having, I’m hyped to see how long is he going to be able to keep up.
Also, Capela’s contract is looking like a major steal by now. He’s playing like a man possessed right now.
It was just the other day I included Justin Holiday in one of my missives on the type of player the Knicks should NOT have let go when I was complaining about the type of player the new management has been bringing in vs. the previous administration. Holiday is a useful and underrated player. He defends and is not a zero on offense. He can contribute a little. I thought he was worth something and this deal proves it.
He was worth what WHG was worth on the open market 🙂 (nothing as satisfying as re-opening that can of worms!)
Willy was/is a better prospect than Holiday, but Holiday should not have been discarded. I guess my criticism of current management is that imo they are badly overvaluing scoring and shot creation over defense, play making, and the efficiency of that scoring. The one exception being Vonleh.
It will bee a better league if Durant have his own team.
He is at par or even better than the likes of Curry, harden, westbrook, and right up there with lebron. He should be the one putting up those harden like or Westbrook like numbers. Hope he will have the guts to do it,
Hello KD, go to New York!
So, are the Knicks maxing out Porziagni? (more Andrea that Dirk, that’s for sure)
Or it could also mean that GM decisions are often suboptimal and affected by many peripheral reasons and that Memphis is losing steam on the season and felt the need to overpay for a mediocre player.
Me, like personally in my opinion, I think James Harden has a real shot at 6MotY. Dunno if he’ll ever be a #1 option or if defenses will make adjustments and diminish the gravity that his teammates give him for open looks, but he really is playing like at least a fourth-team All-NBA honorable mention. I’d like to see what he does without Capela spacing the paint.
Wait, I’m not jon abbey! Harden is probably the MVP again!
I’d take a flyer on Cam Payne. I liked him a lot out of college, and he’s had some bad luck with injuries. He’ll never be the future HOFer that Mudiay is, but we could at least give him some mop up minutes on the way to one of our championships.
But at his introductory press conference, Fizdale made a point of bringing Mudiay and telling him “I’m going to get you right.” The quote could be BS. We’ve seen enough from his actions to know it’s true.
Which would be fine if it was working. But Mudiay is still shit, and Fiz is running around taking bows for making him marginally less shit. He’s the prime driver of the narrative you described yesterday that could cost us $8-10mm a year on a bad basketball player. There’s also sorts of behavioral bias going on here that makes him see something that isn’t there.
Actually you informed me of things I didn’t know. That’s why I don’t bring it up anymore. But just bc Bud wanted Milwaukee doesn’t mean Mills and Perry didn’t prefer Fiz. Budenholzer is a great coach who will want things done a certain way and that wouldn’t have played at MSG. Fizdale is a fraud who needs employment to legitimize himself, so he’ll never rock the boat. He’ll be a corporate shill all day and sell the message. That’s upper mgmt material at MSG.
soak up usage*
Seriously, I don’t see the point of wasting more roster slots on washed-up/unproductive veterans, especially with injury problems. I think it’s an old-guard inefficient move that a wise franchise could exploit by simply not doing it.
Imagine how much more uPsIdE this team would have if they spent the Hezonja, Mudiay, Jack, Sessions, Thomas, Beasley, Jennings, Rose, Sasha, Afflalo, Seraphin, Derrick Williams, Amundson, Jimmer, and Jah Smith roster slots on young, productive NCAA undrafteds and ended up hitting on just two of them for above-average rotation players. Signing Cam Payne would be “just one” slot, but it continues the streak of wasting opportunities on guys who have virtually zero chance of being worth their contract.
And before you say, “But Vonleh!” Vonleh’s success, as you can see from the list above, is uncommon and weird.
Excellent self-analysis!
And Vonleh was the last addition to the roster, on a minimum partially unguaranteed contract.
I don’t know if I’d call him a total fraud, but in a few months here he made ring my internal alarms for people who don’t call things like they are, which is a good quality to have in a coach as long as you use it just to shield the team away from external turmoil. In any other case, it makes you a bullshit spewer and these things will come back to haunt you.
Not that anyone needs convincing, but…
we’d all be saying Fiz was Nostradamus if he’d have just tweaked his message slightly and proclaimed Draymond could become the Warriors version of Lance Thomas
I used the word fraud aggressively, Farfa. I don’t have any ill will towards the guy. But I think it’s evident he’s much more salesman than coach. He’s also plays the media game very well to ensure he gets good coverage.
His stint in Memphis was a disaster. He was pulling the dungeon shit on Marc Gasol. He’s most famous for shouting “take that for data!”, which should be a major red flag to a stats-based community.
And I’ve seen no indication that he’s a coach here. None. There is no offensive system. There is no defensive system. There is no structure. No consistency with rotations. ATOs are a disaster. The only thing we know about his basketball philosophy is that he loves aggression. He is inexplicably tolerant of isolation-heavy offense and bad defense. And he’s in love with two terrible basketball players: Tim Hardaway and Emmanuel Mudiay. You can say it’s early all you want, and you’re right. But all the signs are bad.
The only positive on his ledger I can think of is that he was open to playing Mitchell over Kanter early on, and he’s benched him for Kornet now.
The offense is real bad but there’s definitely been a couple defensive systems. Every coach look like shit when your roster is shit. Saying bullshit to shield the team, that’s a 24/7 job with this roster.
On the subject of trading Kanter, the Bensons don’t really care about basketball (see hiring Saints medical personnel for the Pelicans to save money). Best case scenario, we’ve got a 12.5% shot at Zion in this draft and everyone else in the class is a scrub. Kanter plus Thomas for Davis works. Would the Bensons take that plus our first as a sweetener?
Oh well, I think the same. I guess any neutral observator would think the same.
And this ptmilo quip made my day.
On Fiz, sitting Gasol when Gasol was sucking isn’t a bad sign in my book. There are definte concerns with Fizdale, but it doesn’t really matter if he sucks right now and it’s too early to get the hook out.
Well, not really. I mean, it’s one thing to offer the media the same song “We’re trying to get better… We need to learn how to compete…” i.e. the stuff you say to avoid throwing the whole team under the bus; it’s another to say stupid things like the infamous dungeon one, the “you’ve got to look at other people” one (Burke) or whatever excuse he used for playing Mario so much.
This team didn’t need them. Perry needed them.
I’d totally agree if there was no impeding Mudiay extension.
The Fizdale hate here is nonsense. We know nothing about what he would do with a real team except if you watch what he installed in Memphis where everyone was praising him for massively increasing Gasol’s 3pt rate. The best defensive players on the team are Frank, Vonleh, Mitch, probably Lance and that’s about it. He has used Vonleh extensively, he’s used Mitch a lot when available and ahead of Kanter, he hasn’t got much from Frank and we don’t want Lance playing. His main job was player development and whether you like it or not Mudiay and Vonleh are playing the best of their careers. Knox has improved month over month. Trier has been an ok offensive player for a rookie. And AND we all want to tank and that’s exactly what’s happening. The pessimists on this board this year are acting like hypocrites. Sorry but true.
We made Mike D’Antoni work with Chris Duhon as his PG and Pringles put together a league average offense, a surprisingly good defense, and won 32 games with an SRS of -2.33. And we could all see from day 1 where he intended to take us.
Fizdale is on pace for 19 wins with an SRS of -8.08. I’m happy about it, because I’d be mad if he were winning. But don’t tell me a good coach can’t put something decent together with bad players.
Maybe he’s just a great tank commander who’s doing this for Zion and he’ll work on NBA basics with his team next year. That’s really the only defense of him.
Oh and on the point of media relations, sorry if everyone has a hurt tushy because he butters the media but the only thing that matters is HIS PLAYERS LIKE HIM and unless your Pop or Kerr or whomever that’s all that matters on the communications front in today’s NBA.
It’s just me. Don’t put it on the whole blog.
He took over a team that won 42 games and was the 7th seed and coached them to 43 wins and the 7th seed. Then what that team lost it’s PG all hell broke lose and they fired him primarily because he alienated the team’s best player. So I’d say we know something, and it’s not good, no matter how many 3’s Gasol shot.
Bill Belichek screwed the pooch with the Cleveland Browns too.
The MDA 2009 comp is wrong too. We had no pick the following year and no reason to tank. This year we are actually tanking and that’s not good enough. *eye roll*
It’s not just Hubert. It’s Farfa too.
I don’t want to pay him either, but I think some of you guys are under-estimating how much Mudiay has improved, especially finishing. he’s shooting much better than he ever has, and his FT’s are up. Give Fiz a little credit. He said he’d get him right……he didn’t define what right was. If he had said “I’m gonna take you from a dude about to go to China to a serviceable backup PG who needs to improve on D”…..that would have made sense.
I’m not sure what a good coach not named Pop could do w/ this roster, with no KP. We were starting 3 rookies at one point, 1 was undrafted, one a 2nd rounder. Hell, Rick Carlisle won 24 games last year, so did Bud in Atlanta.
He got fired in Memphis because of player relations.
And in case you forgot, Kristaps clearly did not appreciate Fizdale telling the media he wasn’t making progress in his rehab.
Yeah, but I’d say it’s criticism and not hate. And believe me, I’d like to be wrong on Fizdale. For now we know nothing but I don’t think you can ignore the red flags.
Its very odd to me that on the one hand people want the team to suck so badly that we get the top lottery pick but then turn around and shit on the players and coach because the team is bad. We’re the youngest team in the NBA. We have a rotation that consists of 1st and 2nd year players and reclamation projects and veterans who are just ok but no stars on the team at all. If Fiz was coaching out of his mind, how many wins would it add? Enough to piss everyone off that we aren’t bad enough to get a high lottery pick, that’s how many.
I want to see a better offensive system in place too, but give it some time. People talk about wanting a real rebuild…this is it, folks. When a second round pick who didn’t even play college is getting serious burn, that’s a fucking rebuild.
And while Fiz probably should take some blame for Frank regressing, giving him credit where credit is due regarding Mudiay isn’t pie in the sky homerism. Mudiay IS better this year. Knox is getting better as the season progresses, too. Its not all bad. Sacramento sucked last year and is now one of the more fun young teams to watch this year. Denver was pretty shitty not even 2 seasons ago and did they add a bunch of big time free agents to make that jump? Noope.
If Knox, Mitchel, Frank, and yes, even Mudiay, all keep improving a bit, we add a top pick and KP comes back, we get rid of some of the older guys like Kanter, Burke, Thomas (Lee can stay, he’s a good influence)…are things really going to be that dire next year?
You don’t have to be team optimism or a complete Knicks homer to have a little hope about the future.
I’m concerned about Fiz, and was even before his hiring. He wears his verbal sheep dip on his sleeve.
However, yeah, he’s got a really crappy roster. We may learn alot after the trading dealine. I’m more concerned right now with the team prez and GM and what they might do or not do. They really need to try to sell off Mudiay, Lee, Kanter, LT, if at all possible. Also, Fiz really needs to just give Frank, Robinson, Trier, and Knox as much time on the court together as possible.
As for Fiz fixing Mudiay, likely two other reasons factor in as well: first, Mudiay apparently is in good shape, maybe for the first time in his career. Second, the dreaded playing for his next contract effect. Is the guy finally motivated to be a good player from here on out or just motivated to secure a multi-year deal and then regress right back to laziness?
Fiz is the coach we need, not the coach we deserve.
This is too simple.
It is perfectly reasonable to notice that a coach or player is not good while you want the team to tank.
i normally don’t like watching ball dominant players like harden who bring the ball up the court and rarely pass it – but, that was crazy what he did last night…scored at will and also added a bunch or rebounds and assists…he doesn’t look all buffed up – but, man he must have some insane core strength…
Third: Mudiay isn’t fixed.
i’ve read this comment now at least a half dozen times, and, it keeps coming out as “fiz the weed coach”…
yeah, it’s friday and i’m a little sleepy…
It’s hard to see any sort of system in place when you have the worst roster in the league. I’m pretty sure Nets fans felt the same about Kenny Atkinson when they had the worst team in the league and Atkinson, a guy credited for having a point guard friendly system, couldn’t develop D’Angelo Russell.
The Fizdale hate here is myopic at best. You cannot judge him based on much with this group, and I would argue the most convincing piece of evidence either way is his willingness to bench Kanter for both Mitch and Kornet. Say what you want about his tolerating iso ball, but he started Frank Ntilikina at two different positions before moving him to the bench. Dame Dotson was a starter before both Kevin Knox and Allonzo Trier. Trey Burke has been glued to the bench, and you can’t argue that he’s chasing wins because he’s glued Lance Thomas and Courtney Lee to the bench. Maybe the offense would look better if Kanter was setting real screens and not clogging the paint by rolling when a perimeter player is driving.
It’s actually nuts how a stat based community is out on a coach, same coach who had this roster winning games they had no business in, is out on a coach after 40 games. I mean people hated him here for going against the tank to play Emmanuel Mudiay. Let’s all relax and wait and see what he does with Zion and KP in the fold.
it’s tough, we’ve been blown out (loss by 15 or more) now about 10 out of the total 38 games we’ve played – i’m not sure with this roster if that’s good or bad…
it’s really hard to judge him on wins and losses…hard to judge him on player development…hard to judge him on the team’s offensive and defensive performances…some of these guys on the team, may just not be very good nba talent…
i’m with clash on this:
for what we need right now (a smiling face passing out life preservers on a sinking ship) – fiz “seems” fine…
It’s nuts that you think the community is out on the coach when 99% of it is from me.
I’m actually surprised more people aren’t. He’s a guy who derided stats at his last stop, valued athleticism over production, and had problems with european players. We’ve seen all that continued here.
I guess it’s not important now since we have much bigger issues to worry about.
@38
D’Angelo Russell was not on the roster when the Nets had the worst record in the league, so it makes sense that Atkinson wasn’t able to develop him.
It’s funny how the optimists were predicting the Knicks could be a sneaky playoff team or whatever, and now the roster just has no talent for Fiz to work with. Wasn’t he supposed to be the guy to develop the talent in the first place?
I don’t think he should be fired or anything, because I don’t think there’s much to develop at all on the roster, there are young players who are simply bad and won’t develop. What frustrates me is that his decisions seem random and not committed to one way or the other. They don’t seem to make sense for winning games and they also sometimes don’t seem to make sense in terms of developing the youngest players.
I really don’t care what he does this year as long as all the rookies get to play and we get a very high draft pick. I’m perfectly fine with an even longer rebuild. I just don’t really see reasons to trust this particular management group to navigate through it properly.
To be fair, geo, I didn’t judge him on any of those things. I’m dismayed by the processes, not the results.
I said it’s not that the offense is bad, for instance. it’s that there is no offensive structure, no philosophy, no foundation that I could see running better with superior players.
A good coach, leader, manager, etc typically implements a sound structure right away. You can’t judge him on the poor execution of his plans if the talent is bad. But you can notice that he doesn’t seem to have any good plans to implement.
that definitely makes sense…
Of course that’s what it is. I don’t care at all if we win 25, 18 or 32 games as long as the situation gets handled correctly.
When Fiz trotted out the starting five of Frank-THJ-Dotson-Vonleh-Mitch, that was the correct way to me. When he pulled the plug with that experiment, saying “we need to win, and that lineup isn’t helping”, what do you think he was saying exactly? Because that lineup had a good net rating, and the ones that followed didn’t. (Take that for data!)
So Fiz is either 1) dumb or 2) willing to do what the front office dictates him unless things aren’t salvageable in front of the public opinion. The fact that he’s starting Kornet and he’s not playing Burke just tells me that management has deemed both Enes and Trey useless in terms of resigning them.
I also ask: if the team has no offensive coherence, is it really on the coach the (questionable) development of some of the pieces? Or is it the fact that Knox and Mudiay just have been given full license to play through mistakes (while others – cough Frank cough – don’t benefit at the moment from the same trust)?
I’m asking. I’m not saying I have the answers. Fiz might turn out a great coach, for all we know. But 38 games are enough to form ideas and question marks.
that’s funny…
should be an interesting and competitive game to watch tonight…two relatively young rosters going at it…
weirdly enough – i’m really looking forward to watching kornet and zubac match up…
@41 I don’t think anybody thought we would win less games than I did. My prediction hovered between 19-23 wins. Never have I ever thought this current iteration of a Knicks team would be a sneaky playoff unit because I knew we had a total of maybe 3 defenders expected to be in our rotation, and the best defender on our team is about as raw as a juice bar on offense.
Fizdale can be as random as he wants because it all equals to zero. Our best five man unit would still be terrible so if he wants to start Luke Kornet over Kanter? Great. Ntilikina is struggling so you’re gonna sit him and give another player his 18 minutes tonight? Cool. Tim Hardaway Jr keeps making the wrong read from the option offense? Maybe he’ll figure it out tomorrow. None of this shit matters because they all suck. Everybody has been given an opportunity to play and keep a job, and the only guy who has earned his job is Vonleh. Mitch got pulled because he couldn’t stay out of foul trouble. Ntilikina started two different positions before he got benched, and then he shot himself into 4 DNP-CD’s. Dotson had his chance, too. Hezonja had a shot, Kanter had a shot, Mudiay sucks but he’ll get you a high assist game or enough 3PMs to stave off the other terrible alternatives. The only player that has been immune to being pulled in and out of games no matter what is Timmy, and I really think that’s a decision coming from above. Either way, I’m not holding anything from this season against Fizdale unless he starts Kanter the rest of the way or sits Frank until April. All of the “win now” types in the fold (Burke, Kanter, Lee, Thomas) aren’t being prioritized. I really don’t know what more you can reasonably ask from the guy.
There were people who thought the Knicks could be a sneaky playoff team this season??????
I wouldn’t allow Frank Ntilikina to play through his mistakes if that mistake was consistently “defer to Tim Hardaway Jr, Emmanuel Mudiay, and Allonzo Trier as if they are Chris Paul, James Harden, and Lou Williams”. It’s literally a waste of his own minutes when he hands the ball off at the top of the key and stands in the corner. Even Noah Vonleh grabs a rebound and dribbles it up court consequences be damned. Frank is a uniquely bad player as he’s conservatively inefficient. How do you work with that?
@47 I’m pretty sure Jowles would have hijacked the thread in those days if that were really the case.
I wouldn’t use the word hate, but I’ve been using the term “snake oil salesmen” for several weeks now to describe the current management team. We know Mills is an incompetent. The evidence is accumulating that Perry is not much better. He also overvalues athletic scorers than can create relative to defenders and efficiency (again, Vonleh the exception). I’ve seen nothing that makes me feel good about Fizdale either. He’s the typical salesman. He’s overly upbeat and optimistic about everything. That makes players and fans feel good, but it doesn’t translate into wins.
The only thing we’ve done fairly well is draft, but we’ve been doing that well all along and that competency was probably left over, not added. Gaines is gone.
I think I might have qualified that as requiring a quick return from KP and him playing at 100%, Frank taking a big jump upwards, Knox coming out as a ROTY candidate, and another upside surprise. I guess that’s like saying some 30-1 nag in the feature race might win if he runs the best race of his life and a few of the contenders have an off day or get into trouble. But yeah, it was possible. lol
Coaching during a transition from false win-now to abject tanking is a delicate dance. On one hand you want to avoid the appearance of losing on purpose or one group will crucify you. On another hand, you don’t want to completely alienate the vets that you’re stuck with or everything from the locker room to the media room to the court and bench to media relations gets poisoned. On the third hand, you want to not get fired by ignoring the will of the FO, whether they are intrusive about it or now. Thanks to a bad managerial decision, you are stuck with TH2 so you better play and praise him. Management traded assets for Mudiay, and there is no PG better than him on the roster, so you better play and praise him. I don’t really see anything seriously wrong with the way Fiz has handled PT or rotations. Everyone has gotten a fair opportunity, especially Kanter and his whiny self. He’s gone above and beyond to repair the damage that Horny created with KP, and his comment about KP not running yet was probably accurate (notice that the increasingly petulant KP posted a picture, not a video, and he is still nowhere near ready to return)
As to offensive and defensive systems, Fiz has received high praise from his former bosses and colleagues, specifically about his knowledge of the game. I tend to think that he’s keeping things very simple for developmental reasons. I thought we ran a reasonably competent motion offense last game, and looked great in the wins against better teams like Boston, Memphis, Orlando and Milwaukee. We’ve also been competitive in lots of losses, including last game vs. a very good Denver team. We had 28 assists and 8 turnovers in that game. Hardaway Jr. took 12 shots. Kanter played 20 minutes. Kornet had 19 points on 9 shots, nearly all assisted.
Coaching a contender is much simpler; Play the players you think give you the best chance to win, period.
I want to add one thing about management and coach.
I know everyone here is happy we are in the Zion chase, but there’s no chance at all they wanted to tank like this. They knew we had a young team that wouldn’t win a lot of games, but they were trying to get better, win a lot more games, and open the door to getting a top free agent. They failed miserably. The players they have been adding have made us worse even though they were intended to make us better. That’s why they are tempering expectations about Durant and free agency. They are covering their failure in case they strike out.
Still again, one more thing.
Recently I read an article where Mills answered a question about the cap space. He said that if he couldn’t fill it with the type of star that he’s hoping for he might “roll it over”.
“Roll it over” means signing veterans and other mediocre players to short term contracts while the younger players and draft picks develop. Then you have that cap space available again shortly when the team is better and you have a better chance to sign a star. Not that I think that’s optimal. It sucks. Buy he’s taking a page out of Phil’s book – which is better than destroying value by signing the next Hardaway to a long term contract.
i think that was mostly giana(?) – i’m losing it, i can’t remember their name now…just looked it up: gianadani…
i haven’t seen them write anything in a while though…
@53 you just literally and completely made up everything you said in that post. Nothing. Not one thing Mills/Perry/Fiz said at the start of the season was about seriously competing for wins except lip service and everything they said was the opposite. So you may not like/trust them but let’s cut the gaslighting. The takes lately from the normally accurate yet pessimistic crew are awful. I’m an optimist only because it’s more pleasant for my mental state. However I realize it’s going to take a miracle like Zion/Durant/KP (being good) to make the Knicks contenders. But people around here are just making negative stuff up now or making judgements on the “type of player” management likes or doesn’t or what type of coach Fiz is going to be with little to no data. This Frank Isola level stuff.
I don’t think it’s wrong, either by numbers (especially USG% in guards/wings, without any regard to TS% and the likes, and AST% as a team) or the dreaded eye-test, not to mention his “eat what you kill” quote, to assume that Fizdale has a predilection for guys who can create their own shot, good or bad as it may be.
Shot creation is of course a skill that someone on the court should have in the NBA, but it’s actually useful only if the shot creator a) can also pass the ball to open guys in the right spots and/or b) makes his shots at 56+ TS%, give or take. The only player who met one of this requirements was pre-injury Trier.
Oftentimes, passing the ball around and moving well without the ball yields much better results than what we’re seeing night in and night out (a prime example of this is Denver’s offense). We have bad players, but given that a few of them can actually dribble the ball – Mudiay, Trier, Burke, THJ when inspired – and others can shoot the ball if open – Dotson, Knox, Lee, THJ in transition – there’s no reason to be *this* bad.
This team doesn’t have one average passer for his position except Vonleh. “Eat what you kill” and “dungeon” are poor moment-in-time euphemisms talking about players’ willingness to attack the basket and that he has no permanent dog house (which is exactly what you want). Are we really drawing conclusions about how he would coach prime Chris Paul from those two throw away lines to the press? I mean imagine if you had to speak to the press every day about every minute detail of your job. Would everything you say come off as so thoughtful to a smart audience?
And no there is not enough data from management or coaching to make any serious analysis of their inherent biases. Mills signing of THJ aside.
For every data point about chucking and offense first players I give you signing and playing of Vonleh, drafting and playing MitchRob, benching Kanter etc etc. And I make no claims about those moves other then they are the so-far good mixed in with the we-don’t-know-yet like Knox.
Do you mean beyond ‘take that for data’? Cause that wasn’t deriding stats, that was pointing out that the foul calls were all going against them contrary to how bad calls are statistically supposed to even out. He’s indicated being advanced stats savvy fairly often.
Its totally fair to have questions about the offense he’s implemented, it’s been a shitshow. Every other complaint you’ve got is bullshit. He’s trying to develop our reclamation projects – that’s his job. He says very nice things about the player with esteem issues – that’s his job. He’s implemented reasonable defensive schemes, going so far as to use a zone because we don’t have the players who can execute. He’s played a ton of different line-ups in the first half of the season – the FO has no idea who they’re keeping around, everyone is getting a shot in different roles to see how they do. It coincidentally makes us worse when we want to tank, what a surprise. He’s positive all the time – he hasn’t been in the press conferences I’ve seen but he’s also not shitting all over his players. Not sure why you want him to shit on his players, don’t see how that’s constructive.
Hey, maybe he’s a horrible coach. It’s not obvious at thus point.
And fuck this noise about how the Knicks wanted to win this season. Zero evidence. The media turns being open to Durant wanting to play here into desperation for FAs this summer. What bullshit. The media knows nothing about what’s going on inside MSG anymore, they just make shit up because angry people read articles. Hell, the whole ‘Fiz fixed Mud’ story is a media creation and it’s leading people to get pissed at Fiz when he says positive things about Mud. “He’s strutting around taking credit.” Please.
Did Fiz ever say ‘eat what you kill’? He said ‘keep what you kill’ last summer in terms of competing for playing time, but I’m pretty sure ‘eat what you kill’ was just a description of our offense by Farfa or ptmilo. Accurate, sure, but you can’t get on a guy for saying something he didn’t say.
Offball movement is a thing the Knicks don’t do, hardly at all, though I think there’s been an uptick. Fiz has been bad with the offense. He’s talked about wanting us to share the ball more, might be an execution thing. We don’t have good passers.
Chris Duhon was a much better PG than Mudiay is.
Is there a difference between “eat what you kill” and “keep what you kill”? Aren’t they the same basic phrase?
Is there a bigger dick in the NBA than Jimmy Butler? Guy acts like he’s Michael fucking Jordan.
I know fan fiction is fun, but may I ask where you’re getting the idea that Phil Jackson was a great drafter? I know specifics ain’t your thing but let’s take a look at his actual record:
2014:
Cleanthony Early
Thanasis Antetokounmpo
Louis Labeyrie
-I can’t confirm the existence of any of these people.
2015:
Kristaps Porzingis
Jerian Grant
Willy Hernangomez
-Definitely his best draft, but KP has thus far been average and injury prone (Phil Jackson wanted to trade him for Devin Booker and a pick, you may recall). Jerian Grant hasn’t amounted to anything and was traded, by Phil Jackson, for Derrick fucking Rose anyway. Willy was a good pick, but even his most ardent supporters (and I count myself among them) don’t view his upside as anything more than a nice bench piece.
2016:
Thanks Bargnani!
-Phil signed a bunch of scrubs like Ndour/Baker/Kuz but I guess we’ll give him a pass here.
2017:
Frank Ntilikina
Damyean Dotson
Ognen Jaramaz
-Frank has been ass and multiple players selected below him have amounted to something. Dotson looks like he could return value as a second rounder, but it’s a little hard to give Phil Jackson credit for acting on what turned out to be his consistent philosophy; “the best time to acquire a player is soon after they’ve been very credibly accused of sexual assault.” Jaramaz’ existence is also unconfirmed at this time.
I see two players (out of nine) who have clearly outperformed their draft slot; Willy Hernangomez and Damyean Dotson. So uh, make of that what you will. Phil Jackson: NBA Draft Extraordinaire looks like fan fiction to me.
We have 14 players who play at a fringe-NBAer level. What exactly were we supposed to do this year? Vonleh is our best player and we scavenged him off the scrap heap. Fix isnt the problem.
Vonleh is playing at a completely average level. Everyone else is significantly below average. Kanter is unplayable because of his defense. THJr can’t shoot. Burke, Mudiay, Knox, Trier, Frank, Mitch Rob, Lance, Hezonja, Dotson, and Kornet are all glorified D-leaguers with a bigger paycheck.
I’m glad that we didn’t try to trade for Butler.
not necessarily…eating what you kill doesn’t seem to have quite the same permanence of keeping what you kill…unless of course you have plans for some kind of weird waste display…
It would have been insane for the Knicks to try to deal for him, but yes, even beyond that, he sure doesn’t make it easy to root for him.
Um, HELLO! I was the one who coined the phrase “eat what you kill” accidentally when I was paraphrasing Fiz THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
That’s right, you told me he said “Eat what you kill”! Tsk, tsk.
Seriously, though, come on, it’s the same darn phrase, so you were essentially right.
cgreene….PREACH!
Its hard being team optimist cause people love to say we’re stupid but its fucking sports, escapism, and you know what…I saw the 99 Knicks run to the Finals. I saw The Giants beat the undefeated Patriots in the superbowl. I witnessed the music city miracle. Crazy shit happens in sports ALL THE TIME and all in basketball all it takes is one lucky draft pick or one player taking a big leap forward one year to completely change a team. We’re a team full of young players who are either in their first or second year with a few reclamation projects (who are all in the (GASP) 4th year) and a sprinkle of some veterans, most of whom won’t be here…and people are bitching about how we’re fucking up the rebuild when we’re less than halfway through the first real season we’ve tried this…SOMETHING THEY HAVE ADVOCATED FOR FOR YEARS.
A little bit of optimism and wanting to see how things play out doesn’t make you stupid. People are taking the negativity way too far at this point and making shit up to fit their preconceived agenda.
@64
Months ago I wrote about this at length. I analyzed those drafts to see all the players available when Phil picked, and with almost no exceptions he chose the player who turned out to be the BPA. In 2014, those players sucked, but so did everyone after them. Turner may be better than KP, but it is certainly far from settled, and Willy was an obvious second round gem. The same for Dotson. And Jaramaz… Who did Phil miss after him? Nobody.
So it really comes down to Frank. When I did my analysis, I was still optimistic, but with another few months it’s clear that no, probably Frank was NOT the BPA. Whether he’s a miss isn’t yet clear, but overall, that would be 1 in 9 that he blew. The rest he hit or it there was no quality option available at that spot.
You can’t look at a list of picks in a vacuum and say they failed. It’s about what was available at the time.
http://knickerblogger.net/how-many-wins-will-the-knicks-have-in-the-2018-19-nba-season/
Henry George accused us of groupthink and predicted 36 wins. The Knicks are on pace for 19 wins, so he’s only off by a few!
GoNyGoNyGo: 25 wins
TNFH: 26 wins
Bruno: 26 wins
Nick C.: 26 wins
Kevin5318: 26 wins
Silky: 24 wins
Henry George: 36 wins
Thenamesstam: 29 wins
Jowles: 23 wins
Half Rebuilt: 19, then 21 wins
GHenman: 30 wins
Owen: 24 wins
Oakman: 25 wins
Max: 28 wins
Jack Bauer: 27 wins
d-mar: 28 wins
geo: 26 wins
vincoug: 22 wins
Frank O.: 32 wins
Bockadoo: 28 wins
ptmilo: 24 wins
Z-man: 26 wins
MKinLA: 24 wins
Ben R: 35 wins
NahNah…: 22 wins
Brian Cronin: 34 wins
KnickfannotinNJ: 30 wins
I’m okay with the ~30-win votes because it’s good to be hopelessly optimistic every now and then ; )
I’m thrilled that my cynical “The Knicks will somehow find a way to fuck this up and win too many games” guess was way off. Hooray!
I predicted 35 wins not out of optimism but out of pessimism. I still think we are due for a run down the stretch because I think this team is not going to tank properly. I hope I’m wrong and would love 19 wins.
I predicted a Lakers type winning arc and we are only two wins off them at this point in the season. I assumed KP would be back by Valentines but that now seems unlikely.
Yeah, same deal, Ben, but I’m now optimistic that they won’t get anywhere near that win total, but you may be right that the Knicks will be the team that beats up on all the actively tanking teams at the end of the year. It’s certainly possible.
One thing I’m quite confident in at this point unless either a current young player like Knox makes a huge in season leap or KP comes back for 20 games at peak KP is that we won’t fuck up the tank. If there’s anything that’s Knicksy about the whole thing it’s that it’s a weak draft with more level odds.
@72
I agree. Plus, even if a few players drafted after your own selection outperform the player you picked, that’s not an appropriate standard. It partially reflects the difficult of selecting BPA. That’s easier said than when you are mostly drafting teenagers.
A reasonable way to judge is by looking at what was generally available around where you selected and did you generally do better or worse than average. But you also have to wait long enough to see it to fruition because some guys are projected to develop much later than others. We essentially have 3 guys that were expected to be projects in KP, Frank and Knox because all came in especially young and raw.
For example, despite all the KP trashing, he was AHEAD of schedule. He was expected to be a 4 year project because he was so skinny and weak, but he was forced into the #1 role in year 3 and did OK.
@56
Nonsense.
They said it was a developmental year, but they also said they want to win as part of that development and culture building. The knew they would not win a lot because they had a lot of very young players, but players like Mudiay, Burke, Hezonja, Hardaway, and Vonleh) were brought here to make the team better than the one with Q’Quinn, Willy, McBuckets, Holiday etc.
The team got worse 2 years in row instead.
@79 I don’t have the time or patience to go searching g through the internet but Fiz said on multiple occasions that wins would not be the measure of a successful season. And no one and by no one I mean not even management as bad as you think the Knicks is goes looking for wins with Vonleh and Hezonja. So please stop.
I gave my Celtic fan friend a lot of grief for not pursuing Butler. As usual, Danny Ainge knew what he was doing.
Doesn’t that make the Hezonja signing sound even more foolish then? “No one expects Hezonja to help the team win games, but let’s sign him for one year for essentially the full mid-level exception for…reasons.”
Hezonja is frustrating because he has so much physical talent and is just a lazy a-hole. He’s not quite a Bargnani-level malingerer but not very far off.
I guess ATL is not gonna win tonite…
The later accurately describes our ISO offense while the former is Fizdale in June saying nobody is guaranteed playing time. You can quote me saying ‘fuck that shit’ left and right but context kinda matters.
Sorry swiftandabundant. Mea Culpa.
Fiz has spent enough time in post game bemoaning the lack of effective passing that I genuinely don’t think this is the offense he wants to run but.. it’s been v poor to date and that partly on him. Jury is still out though.
This is only year 2 of Scott Perry’s reign. Not even half a year for Fizdale. It’s ridiculous to be so critical at this point. What do people expect? An overnight miracle? Who cares what the rotations are right now? Fiz doesn’t know the players yet. They don’t know themselves or each other. They run plays. They just don’t run them well yet. I see high pick and rolls, pin down screens, double screens etc. They’re not going to learn to execute all of this in a few months. This is a 3-5 year plan according to Perry. They are trying to develop young players. That makes sense to me. It may or may not work if they are patient. It definitely will not work if they blow the entire roster up every year and make impulsive moves like trade their top pick after 20 games.